I was told confidence doesn’t matter and getting him shelled night in and night out is part of the process and calling him up only to put him behind a depleted injured and poorly playing wild defense so he can continue to get shelled and leaving him in the his first nhl game for 7 goals didn’t matter. Are you telling me it matters???? Dang , ruined our shiny new toy before we ever got to play with it.
His production is good, but haven't had eyes on him. It makes a big difference if he gets preferred TOI and linemates. Walker was getting them three years ago, was named to the AHL AS team, yet now you can't find him with a searchlight.
wild mgmt is to blame if he has lost all his confidence , no excuse for wally or the iowa fans that team has sokked for so long.
I was expecting to see more glimpses of his skillset but have been underwhelmed thus far. He tries to do too much offensively and is forcing plays, which has led to turnovers and odd-man rushes the other way. He skates hunched over and lacks pace.
Read my mind... I was about to ask the same thing. I worry that he's another modestly sized, tweener D that we seem to have oodles of in the system (Healey, Peart, Masters, Kiviharju), but sooner or later we have to hit on one of them, right? I mean, good skating and puck handling doesn't necessarily mean that they are crap defensively.
I used to think JEE's ceiling was a #3 center, so I obviously don't know what Pionk's ceiling could be. I'll try applying a ceiling only once he has an off-year, and the later that occurs, the better. That's also the difference between Pionk and Healey/Peart/Masters, so far. Each of them have had at least one year of regression recently, but Pionk has not.
Forgot Parker. Yet another moderately sized, good skating, good puck handling, but ultimately unmemorable D prospect. They all blur together after a while. Kivi is a bit different in that he is smaller, and perhaps more talented with the puck, though his speed isn't there.
Soucy is one of the ones I didn't really see coming. For me, he blurred together with Jack Sadek and Nolan De Jong. The only lasting memory I had of Soucy before he broke in was that he had a single heavy shot during a prospects tournament that I was in attendance for,
